How a Napa business leader led the downtown’s transformation from sleepy to vibrant
Craig Smith never quit anything before, but when he decided on a whim to quit his job nearly three decades ago, he took a path that led him to oversee the transition of downtown Napa from a half-vacant, flood-prone location to a tourist draw with enough charm to draw the locals.
“This is so much more than a job,” said Smith, who in February will mark 26 years at the helm of the 300-member Downtown Napa Association. “For me, this is near and dear to my heart.”
Now, the 70-year-old Smith is starting to plan his retirement.
How it started
Raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, a life in California was not remotely on Smith’s radar after he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with his bachelor’s degree in business administration and management.
Smith entered the retail industry, working for about four years as a district manager for The Gap. In 1982, the clothing retailer promoted him to work as a corporate recruiter at its then-headquarters in San Bruno on the San Francisco Peninsula.
It didn’t go well.
“Within two years, 10 of us had been fired,” Smith said, stating The Gap had a habit of rewarding its top district performers by promoting them to corporate positions they weren’t qualified for. “They were wrong in bringing me out and they were right in getting rid of me.”
The path to Napa
Smith went on to work for six years at the American Lung Association in Oakland before landing in Napa — in an unexpected way.
“I’d fallen in love with a woman who lived in Napa, and I was coming to Napa all the time,” said Smith. Even after he moved in with his now-wife, Denise Layton, he continued to commute to Oakland.
Then one day Smith made a life-changing decision that led to his departure from the American Lung Association.
“I remember exactly where I was. I was crossing Main Street at Downtown Joe's on my way to a Mexican restaurant that has since closed,” Smith said. “It was pouring down rain, I was in the middle of the intersection, and I stopped and I thought, ‘I'm going to quit.’ I hadn't quit a job without anything else under my belt since college.”
Heading downtown
One day, Smith was thumbing through the classified ads and saw a part-time opportunity at the Downtown Napa Association.
“They were looking for somebody who had a retail background, had worked for nonprofits, and had also helped cities craft ordinances,” he said. “To this day, I don't know why they wanted that, but I when I was with the lung association … I was one of the guys who used to go to city council members and lobby them for their cities to go smoke-free.”
Smith was hired for what was to be a year or two at the most, but he signed on full time before the first year ended. That was in 1996.
The association at the time had a budget of $80,000 and was in debt, Smith said, plus a local business was looking for reimbursement after an unfortunate incident that happened at a downtown Napa event.
“A porta-potty company was chasing them because somebody at one of our events lit a porta potty on fire,” Smith said. “So that was the thing that I inherited.”
Today, the Downtown Napa Association has an annual budget of about $1 million, funded by a percentage of sales tax paid by the individual businesses, he said. The organization’s funding does not include the transient occupancy tax hotels collect.
“We represent hotels tangentially because they are part of our community and fabric,” Smith said, adding that most have a retail component.
Growing pains
Smith represents about 300 businesses in the downtown district — from restaurants, shops and stores to professional services. He said downtown’s commerce is made up of about 50% locals and 50% tourists.
Today, downtown Napa looks a lot different than it did when Smith arrived in the mid-’90s.
“When I got here, half the stores on First Street were empty,” Smith said. “The other half were all mom-and-pop stores.”
Rent at the time went for 50 cents a square foot. That’s a lot different from today, when it averages $5–$10 per square foot, he said.
“In the old days, the district's whole reason for being might be to put on the Christmas parade or the sidewalk sale,” he said, noting that grew over the years to events that involved closing the streets, sometimes up to six blocks or more.
It got to a point where businesses began to balk.
“Virtually everything we did resulted in an increase in sales until we reached the point where there were no vacancies on the street,” he said, "so allowing traffic to go down (First Street) became an impediment.”
The Main Street Reunion Car Show, which closes eight blocks, still happens every year but rather than clog up First Street, it takes place on the ancillary Third Street.
